


Kiss the Tin Man

by hyacinth_sky747



Category: Sherlock Holmes - fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-14
Updated: 2012-04-14
Packaged: 2017-11-03 15:26:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/382958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyacinth_sky747/pseuds/hyacinth_sky747





	Kiss the Tin Man

Kiss the Tin Man  
Sherlock/John  
NC-17  
Warnings: none  
Disclaimer: These are not my characters. Just playing.

 

 

Sherlock’s thoughts stuttered from their tracks. Why? He was thinking about the bomber. What could possibly have grabbed his attention away from such a delightful puzz-

Oh.

John was limping. Why? They were in the middle of a case. Danger abounded. The man’s left hand was trembling for God’s sake. Both hands. Best not to mention it.

“Sherlock.”

John’s face was white. His lips were white. He staggered a bit and Sherlock grabbed him around the waist.

“John?”

“Sorry. I think I need to eat.”

Sherlock thought back. It’d been twelve hours and twenty-six minutes since John had last eaten. Too long apparently. Sherlock steered him into the closest restaurant and sat him in a booth.

“Low blood sugar,” he told the waitress. “Bring him anything.”

The waitress brought bread and juice. John smiled at her and began shoving the food in his mouth while Sherlock ordered him bacon and eggs. After a few moments John stopped trembling.

Sherlock frowned. John reminded him of story Mycroft had read to him when he was child. There was a wrong lion in it. Sherlock had liked lions then, but not the wrong lion. There was a man of straw and a man of metal and a little girl. The man of straw and the man of metal never had to eat or sleep. They sat by the little girl and watched her when she slept and they gathered nuts in the forest to feed her.

One of them didn’t have a heart and the other didn’t have a brain but they still remembered to feed her. Sherlock was only missing one of those organs and he hadn’t had the sense to make sure John had eaten.

“How inconvenient, to be made of flesh.”

“What?” John looked up. His mouth was full. The color had returned to his face.

“Nothing. Feeling better?”

Funny, Sherlock had never wanted a heart before he met John Watson.

~*~

“It’s not fair. You can’t both gang up on me,” Sherlock said with all the petulance of a five-year-old. “I thought you were on my side?” These words he threw at John, who sighed and continued packing Sherlock’s suitcase.

“We’re both on your side, Sherlock. We’d like you to be amongst the living come summer. You worked yourself too hard on that last case. You barely slept for a month. You hardly ate. You’re thin as a rail and you’re still recovering from pneumonia. You’re going.”

Sherlock flounced on the couch, curled up with his face turned away from John and Mycroft.

“I’m already bored.”

“Perhaps you could get dressed. That should relieve your boredom for a moment.” John said.

Sherlock just grunted.

“I will take you out in your pajamas.”

“Fine!”

Sherlock stomped off to his room to change. John tried not to smile at the dramatics.

“He must have been a charming teenager.”

Mycroft stood. “Thank you, John. For going with him.”

“Yes, you owe me one.”

Mycroft took out his wallet. “How much?”

John looked up from his folding. “What? No. No, it was a figure of speech. He’s my friend. Of course I’ll look after him.”

For a moment it looked as if Mycroft might hug him. John scurried away to the kitchen for Sherlock’s medication.

“Still, you’ll be without work for some time. I’d worry less if I knew you had some money.”

“We’re fine, Mycroft. Pop in to check on Mrs. Hudson while we’re gone and we’ll call it even, yeah?”

Mycroft put his wallet away.

“Very well. Try to get some rest yourself, Doctor, hmm? You look a bit run down.”

“Planning on it,” John said.

Mycroft stayed with them until Sherlock was safely imprisoned in the back of the car.

“Bored,” Sherlock said.

John sighed as the driver pulled into traffic. He had a feeling that Sherlock would not be the ideal travel companion.

 

Mycroft had arranged the cottage. It was a ten minute walk to the nearest village, quiet, peaceful, kitchen stocked with food. Sherlock had actually slept for most of the ride. He was now on the sofa, curled around a cup of tea. His eyes and nose were red and he was coughing in a manner that suggested he might produce a hairball.

“Easy,” John said. He put the back of hand on Sherlock’s forehead. Warm. He dug out the thermometer from his bag and stuck it in Sherlock’s ear. “Low fever. Drink your tea.” He tossed a blanket at Sherlock, who threw it to the floor.

“Scratchy.”

“Oh, for…” John rooted around in the cupboard until he located a cotton blanket. Sherlock smiled at him. John shoved his feet out of the way, sat, let Sherlock put his feet in his lap, and opened his novel.

“How can you read that?”

“I can’t, if you ask me questions.”

“It’s fiction. There are no facts in it.”

“There is some truth though.”

Sherlock was quiet for a long time.

“I don’t know if I can stand being here, John.”

“You need rest. You need to get well. You’ll get through it. I’ll help you.”

“Why?”

“I’d rather miss you if you died, I suppose.”

“Would you?”

John looked up from his novel. “It is my one human frailty.”

Sherlock laughed, which set off another coughing fit.

“What’s funny?” John asked when Sherlock had his breath back.

“You, thinking you only have one human frailty and that you think it’s me.”

John looked miffed and he stuck his nose back in his book.

“You’re the most human person I know, John. Weak heart. You’ll love anything if it gives you half a chance. Even me. I’m not even human.”

Sherlock scooted down on the couch and turned on his side. He closed his eyes.

“Sherlock.”

No answer.

“Sherlock, you are human, no matter how hard you try not to be.”

He still didn’t answer. He pretended to sleep and John let him.

 

“There are bee hives out back. I like bees.”

“Really? There’s equipment in the shed for handling them. Make sure you use it.”

“Think of the experiments, John.”

John smiled with relief. Having something to keep Sherlock occupied was worth bees in the kitchen.

 

On the evening of the fifth day Sherlock sat in the damp grass of the back garden, playing his violin to the bees. John had drunk too much wine. He sat next to the cottage with his eyes closed. Listening. It was a composition of Sherlock’s own and John let the music swell his heart with joy or make it ache with grief. He abandoned himself to it utterly. Gave Sherlock his heart to play with for a time.

Later, in the twilight, Sherlock swooned under the apple tree. John raced across the cold grass with his feet bare. Slid on his knees the last few meters to grab Sherlock’s wrist to check for a pulse; leaned over him to feel him breathing.

It was in this attitude exactly that John had been shot. Leaning over a fallen soldier. He fought down panic, conquered the urge to grab Sherlock and shake him, but he couldn’t keep the strain from his voice.

“Sherlock! Wake up! Sherlock!”

Sherlock’s head lolled as he came back to his senses. Poor John. He sounded so worried. It was nice though, to hear in the cold air John’s concern for him. He really ought to open his eyes.

“Thank god. How do you feel? Nauseous? Any pain?”

“I feel lovely. Floaty. Like a piece of glad music.”

“Did you hit your head?”

“No.”

“Alright.” John’s hands stopped feeling Sherlock’s face and neck. “Just rest here for a moment. We’ll just rest here.”

The chill and damp of the grass soaked through Sherlock’s coat. He sat up. Blinked for a moment until his head stopped swimming. He felt better. John would make him tea.

“Go inside. Warm up,” John said. He looked small and cold and he was shivering. No, he was shaking, not from the cold.

Sherlock held out his hand. “Come on, soldier, up you get.”

John wouldn’t look at him but after a few minutes he held up his hand and let Sherlock help him into the house. He was limping. Sherlock made the tea.

 

They spent nearly four weeks at the cottage. Sherlock’s cough lessened and his lungs sounded clearer. His complexion lost the greyish hue it had held during the worst of his illness. He was on the mend but after the night he’d fainted he stopped asking to go back to London. John was glad of this until he realized Sherlock was doing it for him. Sherlock thought John needed rest.

“We ought to be getting back home soon. Mrs. Hudson will miss us.”

“Tired of country living already, John?”

“It’s been nearly a month. You must be going mad. I’m going mad.”

“You’ve spent the whole time reading Proust. It’d be enough to drive anyone mad.”

“Yes, well. We should start packing up. Call Mycroft and get him to send the car, yeah?”

“I don’t call Mycroft.”

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

The night before they left John kissed him. He wanted to do it before they got back to London. There was some inane reasoning behind this. This was an interlude in their lives. If it didn’t go well the kiss could be left here. The memory of it needn’t come back to London with them.

There was something else. Something more.

Sherlock was playing a goodbye melody to the bees. The sound of it made John’s heart hurt. It wasn’t grief, or pain. His heart was too full of tenderness. Sherlock needed a haircut. His bare feet looked like pale stones in the dark grass. His lips were full and John just fucking wanted to kiss him.

Still, he nearly lost his nerve. He leaned over Sherlock’s chair and pressed his lips against the cool skin of Sherlock’s brow. Sherlock looked up at him, not smiling, not frowning. His eyes were dark with a desire that looked painful, dangerous. John pressed his lips to Sherlock’s.

Sherlock looked startled when John pulled away. John smiled.

“Sorry. Forget it.”

“John.”

“It was the music or something, just—“

“John.”

John turned to hurry back into the house but Sherlock was up and grabbing his wrist and pulling him back. Pulling John against his chest and holding him there. Sherlock just held him close for what seemed a long time. John’s ear was pressed against Sherlock’s front and he could hear Sherlock’s heart beating.

“We should finish packing. We should go home.”

“Yes,” John said.

~*~

“Poisoned by hemlock or child missing from school?” Lestrade asked an hour after John and Sherlock had arrived back at 221B. John hadn’t even finished sorting the mail yet.

“Missing child,” Sherlock said. He winced a bit. John would choose this case in hopes of finding the child. Sherlock took it because it sounded more exciting. Lestrade laid out the details of the case and John Watson slipped further and further from Sherlock’s mind.

They were back on the streets of London. John limping along. Lestrade not saying anything about it. They interviewed the parents, the headmaster, the boy’s mates. A frantic search of a labyrinthine old school building followed.

“Sherlock. Up here.”

John’s voice sounded defeated. Sherlock winced. He should have taken the hemlock. Why did John have to be the one to find him?

The boy was clearly dead but John was holding his wrist anyway. Holding out slim hope for a pulse? Maybe John just thought he should hold the child’s hand. Maybe both.

Sherlock felt a hot anger churn in his gut. He’d lost. His first case back and he’d lost. Well, he still needed to catch the killer. Hanging about here wouldn’t fix anything.

“John, the killer.”

“You go. I’ll stay with him until—someone comes.”

“You can’t do anything for him. I need you.”

John shook his head. “The child’s mother wouldn’t want to think he was alone.”

Sherlock looked down at the small body on the floor. He wasn’t long dead. He still looked vulnerable. He still looked like he could be hurt. Anger boiled up in Sherlock’s gut again. It surprised him.

“Find the killer, Sherlock. That will comfort his mother too. It will comfort me.”

 

It took Sherlock and Lestrade two more days to apprehend the killer, the boy’s uncle. Sherlock should have felt flushed with victory. This was when he usually bounded up the stairs to the flat and let John coddle him and send him to bed. Instead, he felt dirty, like he could stand under the shower for a day and not be clean.

John did coddle him with tea and fresh clothes laid out on the bed. He made noises of concern when Sherlock had a coughing fit.

“You pushed yourself too hard, too soon.”

He sent Sherlock to bed.

Sherlock dreamed. He dreamed about the dead boy. The little, cold body that could still be hurt. He dreamed about the look of pain on John’s face. John turned to glare at him.

“He didn’t want to be part of your game. Neither do I. We’re both human, you know. We get hurt.”

Sherlock woke gasping. His clothes were wet with sweat. He got up and opened the window. His hand was trembling. There was a lump in his throat and it wasn’t caused by the dream. Sherlock knew that when he walked down the hall John Watson would be gone. Not kidnapped. John had walked out of Sherlock’s life of his own volition.

He made himself go anyway. He wanted to sit in John’s room while it still remembered him. The hallway was silent and John’s room was dark. It wouldn’t look much different. John always tidied all of his belongings away.

“I can’t sleep either.”

Sherlock screamed.

John sat up in the bed and turned on the light.

“What’s wrong?”

“You startled me! I didn’t expect you’d be here.”

“It’s three o’clock in the morning. Where else would I be?”

“I had a dream. I didn’t like it.”

John patted the empty space in the bed. Sherlock sat there.

“Don’t you ever dream?”

“It’s all fiction.”

“Not all of it.”

“Please don’t say that.”

John put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “Do you want to sleep here?”

Sherlock shook his head. “I shouldn’t be allowed to play with human boys. You get hurt. You’ll get hurt.”

“Sherlock lay down. You’re half asleep.”

Sherlock did. He shouldn’t have but he wanted to so badly. John pushed Sherlock’s hair back from his forehead. Sherlock closed his eyes. Waited for the press of John’s lips against his skin. It didn’t come. He opened his eyes.

“I liked what happened in the garden, John. I liked it too much.”

John’s breath hitched. “You can’t like it too much.”

“I can. I’ll want to keep you forever. I’m dangerous.”

“How?”

“I’m like that metal man. I don’t have a heart.”

“The Tin Man? From the Wizard of Oz?”

“That’s the name. I erased it.”

“He had the biggest heart of all. It was just rusty. It hurt him to use it.”

“You make me hurt. You make me human.”

“You are human. You’re allowed to hurt. I don’t make you human. I just show you things that were already inside you.”

Sherlock wanted to argue but his eyes were drifting shut.

“Sleep,” John said. “The Tin Man couldn’t sleep.”

~*~

“This fiction of yours is ridiculous.” Sherlock was reading _Good Omens_.

“Yes, well, while that’s flattering, I didn’t actually invent fiction. I didn’t even write any of it.”

“Don’t. You have enough trouble with the blog.”

“Right,” John shoved Sherlock’s feet out of his lap and stood. He sat at the table with his laptop and began typing.

“What are you doing?”

“Writing fiction.”

Sherlock got up to read over John’s shoulder.

_Once upon a time there was a Tin Man, named Sherlock, and a Scarecrow, named John, who lived at 221B Baker Street._

“No, you’re the little human girl in the story.”

John glared at him.

“Or boy. You can be a little boy.”

John erased the line and started over.

_Once upon a time a genius, named Sherlock, and another bloke, named John lived at 221B Baker Street._

“That’s fact.”

_One warm and foggy summer night John was engaged in writing a masterpiece of literature. Sherlock was leaning over his shoulder to read the poetry that poured from John’s fingertips and lit up the screen. The words so moved him that he grabbed John’s chair, spun him around, and snogged him desperately._

John stopped typing. Sherlock was motionless. He cleared his throat.

“That could be true. Somewhat true. We could make that fact.”

John spun his own chair around.

“Now?”

Sherlock nodded. John wrapped his hand around the back of Sherlock’s neck and pulled him in close.

 

“I’m Crowley,” Sherlock said some time later. He said it against John’s bare belly. It tickled.

“What?”

“I’m Crowley and you’re the angel.”

“Okay. You’re not allowed to read fiction anymore. You’re not a tin man. You’re not a demon. You’re Sherlock Holmes, a human, a consulting detective, a genius, and a bloody good kisser.”

“Go on.”

“You’re a fisher of compliments. And I am John Watson, also a human, a doctor, and blogger.”

“My friend.”

“Yes, there’s that.”

“You look nice with your shirt off.”

“That too.”

“You probably look fantastic with your trousers off.”

“We could find out.”

“I bet you look like an angel with cock in your mouth.”

John took a sharp breath in and then his hands were pulling eagerly at Sherlock’s belt buckle. After a brief struggle with Sherlock’s trousers he was on his knees, between Sherlock’s pale thighs.

“John, John. Put it in your cheek. Let me see it stretch you.”

Sherlock ran his fingers over John’s face. Felt the bulge of his own cock on the other side of John’s skin.

“You’re lovely. God, you look lovely like that.”

Sherlock wanted. His body ached and writhed with need. His heart felt heavy in his chest. Too full. He grabbed John under his arms and pulled him up. John struggled for moment, mouth open, trying to keep hold of Sherlock’s cock. Sherlock laid him on the floor, lay on top of him and put his tongue in John’s mouth. He could taste himself on John’s tongue. It was sinful, delightful.

John was pushing at him. “Get my trousers off. I want to feel you. I want to touch every fucking inch of you.”

It hurt to pull away from John, even for the brief time it took for John to kick off his jeans.

Later, Sherlock would want to look at John naked for hours, but just then he needed to feel him, to breathe him, taste him, smell him, to hear the little sounds John made into Sherlock’s mouth as their cocks rubbed together. Little sounds like keening grief.

John’s fingers gripped Sherlock’s arse. It hurt. Burned. Felt good. John moved, thrusted, writhed, under Sherlock’s body. He was all heat and sweat and thighs wrapped tightly about Sherlock’s hips.

“Fuck, I’m not going to—Sherlock—feels too good. Sherlock.”

John came all over both of them, crying out, leaving teeth marks in Sherlock’s shoulder. It was the sound of him, the way he tossed his head on the carpet that sent Sherlock over the edge.

“John! Want you.”

It wasn’t enough. That was Sherlock’s first thought. It would never ever be enough. He’d always want more of John.

“I want more,” Sherlock said.

John huffed a laugh. “Give us a minute.”

“I’ll always want more.” Sherlock picked his head up to look at John. John needed to understand. Sherlock would devour him.

John put his fingers on the worry lines on Sherlock’s forehead. “You can have it. You won’t hurt me, Sherlock. You can’t take anything I don’t want to give. I want you to have me.”

That made Sherlock’s heart hurt.

“Will it always hurt this much? Loving you?”

“It doesn’t have to hurt. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I feel fragile.”

“You’re human. You’re suppose to feel that way on occasion. You’re with me though. I won’t hurt you.”

“I know that, John.”

“Good, Sherlock. That’s good. We’ll just go on then. Having adventures, fucking each other brainless, until were too old and have to retire to the country.”

“London won’t be the same without us.”

“No, that it won’t.”

“We could keep bees.”

“What was that song you played to them? The last night?”

“I didn’t. I was playing to you.”

“Were you?”

“I call it, _John, Kiss the Tin Man_.”

“Human,” John said.

“Yes,” Sherlock mused. “It appears I do have a heart.”  



End file.
